Love and family politics, however, did not necessarily coincide. “I say that, from that time forward, Love quite governed my soul,” he would later write in his first work, Vita nuova, published in 1294. A second encounter between the two took place near the Arno River in Florence when both were in their late teens. Dante writes that she was about eight years old at the time, and he was nine. Most scholars agree Beatrice was the daughter of Folco Portinari, a Florentine banker. And so, in 1274, Dante saw Beatrice for the first time at such a party, wearing “a subdued and crimson dress.” Men and women celebrated separately, but children did not. On May 1, Florence celebrated the arrival of spring with feasts and music throughout the city. Love, politics, and warĭante’s autobiographical writing furnishes historians with clues as to the identity of the woman who would become one of the most famous muses in literature. A moving passage in the Paradiso section of The Divine Comedy depicts his beloved Beatrice prophesying the years of exile that await him: “Thou shalt have proof how savoreth of salt / The bread of others, and how hard a road / The going down and up another’s stairs.” Although Dante’s exile was, materially speaking, a comfortable one, his biographers believe that the experience itself was an existential crisis that set his thoughts on higher things, inspiring his great masterpiece. He settled at first in Verona as a guest of the city’s ruler before being invited to Ravenna, where he would live until his death in 1321. In 1302 Dante was sentenced by his factional rivals, the Black Guelphs, to temporary banishment then to permanent exile. Historical records show that as a young man Dante had fought for the Guelphs at the 1289 Battle of Campaldino, in which they had defeated their regional enemies, known as the Ghibellines. It is said, for example, that he would fly into a rage against anyone who spoke ill of his faction, the pro-papal Guelphs. Not all of it is flattering: According to sources, Dante was quick-tempered. He offers extensive autobiographical details in his works and, because of his political activity-which later led to his downfall and forced him into exile-he was a much documented figure during his lifetime. Although the poet’s parents never appear in his works, Dante mentions in the Paradiso an ancestor, Cacciaguida, said to have been knighted by the 12th-century king Conrad III during the Crusades.Ĭompared with many other figures of his time, there is considerable information about Dante available to historians. She died when Dante was a child, and Alighiero married a woman with whom he had already fathered at least one child. Alighiero di Bellincione, his father, was a businessman and moneylender, and Bella, his mother, a member of the influential Abati family. According to 14th-century chronicler Filippo Villani, he preferred the diminutive Dante. He never used his official name Durante, however. Florentine familyĭurante Alighieri was born in Florence in May 1265, under the astrological sign of Gemini, a detail he mentions in the Paradiso. ( This Renaissance 'superdome' in Florence took more than 100 years to build.) Peopled with figures from mythology, the Bible, and Dante’s own time, hell's descending circles (each one reserved for different sins) constitute some of the most vivid and emotionally charged scenes in world literature. Of the three sections, however, it is the lot of the souls in the Inferno that has had, by far, the greatest resonance with readers and artists. Although it recounts an actual physical journey, The Divine Comedy is also an allegory of the soul’s progress through sin (hell), penitence (purgatory), and redemption (paradise), the last being the joyful ending promised in the title. In naming his lifework Comedy, Dante employs an understanding of the word that means a narrative with a happy ending, unrelated to humor. Later, he is reunited with his beloved, Beatrice, who guides him up to purgatory, and then to Paradise, where, in a moment of ecstasy, Dante glimpses God. The Divine Comedy is a long poem recounting the author’s journey among the damned in hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Ĭompleted just before Dante died in 1321, it consists of three parts- Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
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